


the ancient hungers welled up

by crownedcarl



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Blood Drinking, Developing Relationship, Feelings Realization, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Gore, Mild Sexual Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 09:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15749238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: Alucard is beginning to understand Trevor Belmont. His shame is a blush staining his neck. His shame is an animal with a broken limb, begging for mercy.





	the ancient hungers welled up

For the entirety of the year that Alucard rests, he does not dream.

It is a strange sleep he succumbs himself to, awareness tickling at the very edges of his mind, but nothing substantial ever manages to bleed through. There is sometimes the faint sensation of pain, of aching muscle and tendon knitting slowly back together, but as he lies in the darkness of the coffin, Alucard does not dream, he does not think and he does not hope.

Waking is an arduous task. Rising almost saps the strength he has managed to recover, eyes adjusting to the dim light of the catacombs, air stale and dust-filled as Alucard inhales a breath that proves to him that yes, the time has come - he can taste the bloodshed in the air.

His father has made good on his promise, then. Targoviste has fallen and Wallachia is not long for this world.

There are voices around him that echo in the vastness of the chamber, one youthful and melodic, the other gruff and world-weary. Curious, Alucard lifts his head and peers out from beneath the tresses of his hair, taking in the people who have found him, his heart sinking as their silhouettes become solid, tangible flesh. A girl in robes is staring at him, cheeks flushed with the richness of youth, but it is the man beside her that Alucard’s eyes linger on the longest.

Strange, how familiar he seems. It does not occur to Alucard why until the man speaks his name, but even then there is more to the story of Trevor Belmont than him carrying the burden of a disgraced house upon his shoulders.

Before Alucard can consider it further, however, the whip cracks towards him. The time for rumination can wait.

-

There must have been a time where Trevor Belmont knew how to smile without malice. The toll of the years simply can’t be singularly responsible for the near permanent scowl etched into the man’s features, but Alucard supposes that losing everything you’ve ever loved would erase the happiness from any living creature’s heart. Still, it irks him that Sypha can coax Trevor into laughter that is just on the verge of genuine, while he offers Alucard nothing but sharp-toothed grins and sneers tinged with the threat of violence. It is beginning to become an irritation.

“Don’t mistake an alliance for camaraderie,” Trevor warns. “Fucking vampire. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” Alucard assures him, “Nothing at all. I simply think we might fare better on this journey if you weren’t so consumed with contempt for me, Belmont.”

There have been times where Trevor has almost smiled at something Alucard has said, but those moments are fleeting and far between. Some nights, Alucard knows that Trevor wants to kill him. Other nights, such as these, Alucard finds him drunk and confrontational, the fire beneath his skin flickering, eventually dying out as Trevor’s eyes meet his. There is a resignation there that Alucard doesn’t like the look of.

“What would you do,” Trevor mumbles, staring down into his drink, “To see your mother again? To hold her in your arms?”

Alucard stills, considering the question. His mother has been lost to him for what amounts to a year. How young was Trevor when he witnessed the exile and slaughter of his family, down to the last woman and child? How vast must that loss be, echoing across the years?

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do,” Alucard whispers. “Not one foul thing I wouldn’t consider doing to have her back. Yet…” he trails off, a mirthless smile tugging on his lips. “She wouldn’t want me to. Not at the cost of my humanity.”

Trevor is silent, wrapping his cloak tighter around his frame. It is getting colder, now, the further north that they travel. Alucard does not feel the bite of the wind as keenly as Trevor does, but he feels it nonetheless. It must be an awful sacrifice for Trevor, being here. It must sting.

His voice is very faint, almost drowned out by the howling of the wind. “To have them all back,” Trevor sighs, “Is a fucking pipe dream. The dead are dead. Except…” he gestures at Alucard, eyes glassy. “Except for some lucky few. Or cursed, is it? I can never tell.”

For once, it is not a jab at Alucard’s state of existence. It’s a curious question.

“How lucky I must be,” Alucard murmurs, “To outlive and outlast everyone I have ever loved and will ever love. To be alone, always, doomed to it by my very nature. Yes, Belmont,” he says, “It is something uniquely awful, to be immortal.”

“I can’t imagine,” Trevor confesses, his eyes now closed, chin tucked very close to his chest, rising and falling with trembling breath. “I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. Not even you.”

For some unfathomable reason, Alucard finds himself smiling. The grief is still burning within him, but being met by something as simple as sympathy by the one person in the world who he never thought could look at him without resentment...it stirs something in his chest.

“Go to sleep,” he tells Trevor, “We have many more miles to cover tomorrow.”

-

There is a night where everything threatens to unravel completely. Sypha is asleep not long after nightfall, her body covered by the threadbare blankets the innkeeper was able to offer, Alucard sitting silently by the desk and reading by candlelight. Trevor is long since gone, off to do whatever it is the man does in the dark of night, leaving with the promise to be back before sunrise to help gather supplies.

Alucard does not dwell on it, but as he sits and reads, it occurs to him that neither he nor the others have had occasion to bathe or even rinse off in some time and after prodding the sleepy girl cleaning tables, he is off in search for the well. The night is chilly, the stars covered by clouds, but the air is fresh and Alucard is grateful for the change of pace, for the opportunity to pretend at being a simple traveler, not having to think of his father and what might await him once he reaches Dracula’s castle.

The streets, or what passes for them in such a small town, are empty. No living thing is out in the darkness, affording Alucard the luxury of exploring without arousing suspicion. For a small town, it has some staples of larger settlements; a brothel with the lights on upstairs looms ahead of Alucard’s path to the well, the pump creaking and groaning as he fills the bucket with water.

Sometimes, he aches to be part of humanity. Other times, surrounded by the stench of cattle droppings and human bile, Alucard is grateful to be apart.

He begins the trek back to the inn at a leisurely pace, bucket propped up against his hip, when the noise reaches him. Small, hurt sounds are in the air, ragged breath and muffled curses striking Alucard as both odd and concerning. There is an alley some distance away, the noises increasing in volume as Alucard carefully approaches, seeing two shapes outlined against the crumbling brick of the butcher shop.

It is a blessing, he thinks, that he can see in the dark without being seen, because Trevor would surely end him if he knew that Alucard had borne witness to this; Trevor, stripped of his pants, his face buried in the neck of a larger man, a thick-fingered hand moving rhythmically in the space between Trevor’s thighs.

For a moment, Alucard considers making his presence known, if only to have something to hold against Trevor in the event of him becoming disagreeable, but the fallout would be far too disastrous to risk. Still, something roots him to the spot for a moment longer, eyes drifting to the pale stretch of Trevor’s neck, flushed with desire. Alucard’s mouth waters.

It is impossible even for someone like Trevor to see in the thick, womb-like darkness of the night, but he turns to look at the mouth of the alley, staring inches from the spot where Alucard is frozen. After a moment, Trevor squeezes his eyes shut, those noises beginning anew as Alucard turns and walks back to the inn.

His hands are shaking. Sleep does not come easily that night and come morning, Trevor is looking strangely at Alucard, as if he’s done something wrong. Nevermind that he has. Trevor can’t possibly know about last night.

There is no sign of his tryst anywhere on Trevor. He looks as he always does, frowning at Alucard as he begins to get dressed. Sypha must be downstairs, eating. Alucard does not like the stifled air of the room that traps him with Trevor, but outwardly, his expression remains calm.

“When did you get this?” Trevor asks, wringing out a cloth to clean his face, droplets falling into the bucket. “Last night?”

Is the question loaded, or is Alucard hearing confrontation where there is none to be found?

He turns to look at Trevor, cloak fastened around his neck. “Yes,” Alucard replies, sliding his gloves up the length of his wrists. “It was long past dark. You were still occupied.”

Trevor is not an expressive man. The fact that he fumbles the cloth and has it splashing down into the water is telling, his face flushing red as he stares at Alucard. He has said nothing incriminating, yet the uneasy feeling of being caught persists.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Trevor snaps, pushing the hair out of his face. “I went for a stroll, that’s all.”

For the first time, Alucard is beginning to understand Trevor Belmont. His shame is a blush staining his neck. His shame is an animal with a broken limb, begging for mercy. “I said nothing to the contrary,” Alucard assures him, almost kindly. “Get dressed, now. Sypha is waiting on us.”

-

Whatever else Trevor may be - a drunk, a nuisance, a cynic - he is not without his uses. He proves as much the day after their journey begins, the three of them being beset by demons on the desolate country road. Alucard instinctively places himself in front of Sypha and Trevor, because humans die so very easily, but as Trevor shoulders his way past Alucard, whip in hand, it reminds him of why the house of Belmont is and always has been a name to fear.

“I have better things to do than cut down you ugly fucks one by one,” Trevor sighs, staring down a screeching bat-creature, “But I could use the entertainment. Come on, now. Don’t be shy.”

It is not an easy fight, by any means, simply because Sypha is young and still maturing into her own power, while Trevor is unsteady from the previous night’s wine and Alucard somewhat out of practice after a year of slumber, but when all is said and done, the demons are dead and none of the victorious have any marks to show for it.

None that are significant, anyway, because while Trevor clutches his arm and wraps it with a strip of cloth torn from his coat, Sypha is cleaning her hands of the ashes from obliterated hellspawn to reveal small burns, none of them especially painful-looking. Alucard has not sustained an injury, but as he stares at Trevor and the bleeding cut on his arm, he yearns. He aches with a feral hunger, quickly whipping his head around to inhale the far less tempting scent of burning corpses.

It was not a clean fight. Alucard had no time to look out for anyone but himself, but in the relative chaos, his eyes had sought out Trevor and Sypha numerous times, all to assure himself of their wellbeing. He had witnessed Sypha incinerating two hulking abominations without eyes. He saw Trevor lay waste to the half-dozen winged humanoids in his path, whip taking their heads off and sawing their bodies in half. The waste is all around them. In Sypha’s hood, in Trevor’s hair, in Alucard’s collar.

Despite all that, the hunger doesn’t abate. “Sypha,” Trevor says, his voice tired, “Will you go find us some herbs, for your hands and my arm?”

She nods, but before she goes, she throws her arms around Trevor, first before launching herself at Alucard in a tight embrace. “I’m glad you’re both alive,” she mumbles, then smacks Trevor upside the head. “Ask me for help, next time. You’re not invincible, you know.”

Trevor winces when she pokes him in the arm. “Alright, fuck, understood. Herbs, please.”

Once she’s gone, the faint smile on Trevor’s face vanishes. He looks at Alucard for a long time, approaching slowly with his sword in his hand. He has already wiped the blood and guts off of it, the blade gleaming in the sun. Wordlessly, he unwraps the half-assed bandage from his arm and says “You’re hungry, aren't you?”

It is not a cruel thing for Trevor to ask, but it makes Alucard’s mouth curl in disdain. “Put that thing away,” he sighs, “I’m not a threat to you or Sypha. I’ll manage for a while longer.”

“While that might be true, I’m not inclined to take any chances,” Trevor snaps, “And no offense, but you look positively sickly. Come on. I can’t be _that_ repugnant, right?”

It takes a very long moment for Alucard to understand what Trevor is implying, but Trevor is standing there with his arm bare, bleeding sluggishly, held out at a distance where all Alucard would have to do for a taste is lean forward and down. God, but he’s tempted.

Trevor must see the desperate gleam in Alucard’s eyes, yet he doesn’t flinch. “This isn’t blanket permission,” he warns, “But I can’t have you starving and half out of your mind, you understand?”

“Yes,” Alucard says, his voice hoarse. “I will take no more than needed. It will not hurt. I promise.”

Trevor glances back at the direction Sypha left in, then says “Go on. Make it quick.”

Alucard has had human blood from bottles, before, stored and preserved by his mother, but for all that it nourished him, it did not satisfy him. Not like Trevor’s blood satisfies him, Alucard’s mouth sealing around the wound and sucking. He is _ravenous_ , gasping briefly as his throat works to swallow the rich, living blood flowing from Trevor and staining Alucard’s teeth. It is bliss. It is better than Alucard ever anticipated it being.

It comes to an end, as all things do. Alucard carefully removes himself from Trevor’s body, but his tongue darts out for one last taste as he raises his head and blinks at Trevor, wondering briefly about the strange, pained expression Trevor is trying very hard to hide. “Did I hurt you?” Alucard asks, despite not seeing how he could.

Trevor laughs. It is shaky and brittle but it is a laugh. “No, fuck no,” he chuckles, eyes narrowing as he looks Alucard up and down. There is color in his cheeks again, he knows, amused at Trevor’s inspection. “You’re...full, now, right?”

Alucard thinks back to the first time they met, remembering Trevor panting and tense beneath him, his hair thick between Alucard’s fingers. A taste should be enough, but Alucard can’t imagine ever being satisfied, not after this.

How ironic, that he should have the same weakness as his father.

“Yes,” Alucard says, the word ringing hollow. “I’m fine. I will be fine.”

It will pass, he tells himself. Trevor will die long before him, or he will find a wife, or he will leave to travel elsewhere. There is no home to be built with a wandering soul.

-

Sypha sits with him while Trevor hunts. There is some part of Alucard that can’t help but be protective of her, as if she’s more than a companion to him, but after some time, it bothers him less and less. She is bright and powerful, but that pales in comparison to her determination in a cause bigger than herself. Alucard would hate to see her die for what she believes, but the girl sees it differently. “It would be an honor,” she tells him, “To give my life for this. For what I believe in.”

If Alucard had never woken and left Wallachia to fall into ruin, she would surely be dead, as would her comrades. Still, the uneasy feeling of leading her to her inevitable death weighs on him, because it would be a shame to extinguish someone shining so bright. The thing he struggles to understand is why, between the three of them, Trevor has stayed. He isn’t a man of conviction or integrity, after all, but he is still here, offering his cloak to Sypha and his blood to Alucard, more selfless than Alucard had thought him capable of. The why of it bothers him.

Alucard does not like that which he can’t understand.

Perhaps it’s familial duty that pushes Trevor to remain, but perhaps the man simply had nothing better to do. Maybe his only stake in this is his own survival.

“He likes you,” Sypha says, after Alucard has expressed his doubts. “No, don’t give me that look. He does. He might not show it or know how, but he does. He’d have walked away by now if he didn’t.”

It soothes something bruised within him, the assurance that Trevor will not leave. His presence has been cause for many a headache, but Alucard would rather not lose him when they are so very close to reaching their goal. “I find myself less annoyed by him,” Alucard offers, smiling as Sypha snorts. “He does have his positive qualities.”

Trevor’s blood is still sweet where it sticks behind his teeth. Alucard sighs.

-

Alucard recognized Trevor’s recklessness the moment Trevor faced certain death and grinned in the face of it, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his blade, Alucard’s own seething expression reflected in Trevor’s bright eyes. He hadn’t thought it would become a liability, but Alucard is proven wrong not long after they begin the final stretch of their journey.

There is an ambush, but for a moment, they manage to hold their own against what is effectively a horde of giants clutching clubs and maces, swinging them far too closely to Sypha’s flowing robes and Trevor’s outstretched arms. Alucard hears a crack so loud it shakes the ground beneath their feet, time frozen as he stares at Trevor being flung into a tree, laying limp on the ground as a giant looms above him. The creature approaches and before Alucard can react, the giant is snapping Trevor’s arm with a sound Alucard will hear in his nightmares for years to come. Worse than all of that is the fact that when Trevor is lifted by a meaty hand, sword clutched in his fingers, he makes no move to defend himself.

Alucard rarely lets himself become undone. Now, he screams “Belmont, you don’t get to die here,” and leaps on the hulking back of the giant, eyes pleading with Sypha to hold them off until Alucard has fixed this mess.

Things become unclear. Time blurs. All Alucard knows is that by the time the ground runs red with blood, Sypha is staring at him and the length of his gore-stained sword, beheaded giants staring at nothing. Alucard turns slowly. The broken figure by the tree coughs. Fear grips his heart and squeezes. Alucard is by Trevor’s side in a few long, hurried strides, cradling his chin in one hand, exhaling with trembling relief as Trevor meets his eyes; his gaze is bleary, yes, but he is alive and the rest doesn’t matter.

“You absolute idiot,” Alucard hisses, staring at Trevor who’s staring right back. Taking on the biggest opponent available to him in a bid to either impress or defy would be suicide for any of them, Trevor most of all. Sypha can conjure magic shields. Alucard can recover from being cut nearly in two and while Trevor’s perseverance is undoubtedly a good thing, it can’t keep him safe. Alucard can’t make sense of why, when surrounded by allies, Trevor would choose to do it alone, but maybe it’s a way of life Trevor is having a hard time shaking. “We would have come to your aid. We would have helped, _I_ would have helped-”

But Trevor Belmont is unconscious in Alucard’s grip, so the lecture will have to wait.

Later, after the sky has gone gray and dreary, Trevor is resting with Alucard’s cloak bundled beneath his head to act as a cushion. His arm will heal quickly, Sypha informs him, but it will take several more days before she will be able to finish healing him. Alucard nods, poking at the fire, willing the bundle of sticks and dry brush to burn hotter, but it’s no use. The cold will get to them all tonight, it seems.

Trevor briefly wakes, eating what remains of his last hunt. He says very little, face pinched in discomfort, avoiding Alucard’s eyes as they come to rest on him.

“Sometimes,” Alucard says, sitting by the fire, the flames illuminating Trevor’s bloody face, “I can’t help but think that you must have a death wish.”

Trevor says nothing. It is answer enough.

-

Alucard is troubled in the days that follow their run-in with the giants. Trevor is a silent shadow, walking beside him without saying much, their eyes rarely meeting during their fireside rests. Alucard understands that something has changed; he can smell the shift in the air, can see clear as day the guilty bunch of Trevor’s shoulders when attention is drawn to his injury, but most of all, Alucard understands why Trevor can no longer look at him as the two of them take a moment to wash downstream in a river. Trevor has never felt the need to hide from Alucard, before. Now he hesitates with his hands twisting in the hem of his shirt.

There’s that moment, lingering in the back of his mind, of Trevor against a wall with another man between his legs. Alucard has looked at Trevor, sometimes, to find Trevor looking back, but those glances remained an unspoken secret between them. Either that, or Trevor has simply decided that never speaking of it would be better than leaving himself vulnerable to something as human as desire. Alucard has spent years playing at being human and longer still resenting humanity for their faults, their simplistic needs, their base desires leading to ruin. It has taken him a long time to truly understand. It took meeting Trevor Belmont to awaken that spark.

The reality of his situation is far removed from his thoughts, his fleeting fantasies. Trevor is no easy thing to possess.

“You won’t get much washing done, wearing that,” Alucard remarks, already stripped down to nothing but his skin. The water laps at his ankles as he crouches down, cupping his hands in the river and letting the drops run down his shoulders, his back. Trevor remains on the riverbank, clothed and morose. “What’s the matter?”

It feels unfair to ask when Alucard already has an inkling of what’s preventing Trevor from baring himself. Still, it must be asked, if only to settle this strange, crackling tension between them that grows more brittle by the day. Alucard averts his eyes, granting Trevor a moment of privacy to gather his thoughts. Whatever may happen, be it today or tomorrow, Alucard knows that he isn’t willing to risk the budding friendship between them for something uncertain.

After a moment, a rustle reaches Alucard’s ears. Trevor is struggling out of his shirt, movements awkward with the restrictive wrapping around his injured arm, but rather than offer assistance and bruise Trevor’s pride, Alucard simply continues washing himself, tilting his face into the sky.

“The matter is,” Trevor says, his voice reaching Alucard as through a thick fog, “That you _look_ at me. I don’t understand why.”

A half-smile tugs at Alucard’s mouth. While the honesty is startling, Trevor’s voice is almost upset and Alucard doesn’t know what he is supposed to do with the fact that this man, this tormented, self-destructive man, is looking at Alucard with thinly veiled longing.

There is a shudder working its way up Alucard’s spine. He rises fully to his feet, wading through the shallow water to reach Trevor, but he stops far enough away that Trevor will have the luxury of his personal space if he decides this isn’t what he wants. Alucard has been alone for some time, now. It will not be difficult to readjust to that reality once more. 

“You do understand,” Alucard coaxes, crouching at the very edge of the water, looking up at Trevor and taking in the shape of his mouth, the length of his eyelashes. The scar twitches as Trevor opens and closes his mouth. “You do know why.”

It is very nearly tender, his hand resting on Trevor’s clothed knee. Alucard has not had the occasion or the desire to be gentle in a very long time, but it comes easily to him as Trevor looks at him, eyes wide, a wounded animal tempted to flee. Hasn’t he done enough running, by now?

Attachments are dangerous. Attachments mean having more to lose in this fight than his life, but it is far too late to put an end to it now. Coming to care for someone he nearly killed, who nearly killed him - how absurd, that his existence has come to this.

Trevor exhales sharply, leaning forward, elbow resting on his knee. “It isn’t safe,” he says, “To want. To want this. Men hang for this.”

Quietly, reluctantly, in an outburst not unlike him, Trevor snarls “Fuck, to think that I’d be willing to face the noose for _you_...”

Then, without warning, without so much as a _can I,_ Trevor all but lunges forward to kiss Alucard, one desperate hand fumbling for purchase in Alucard’s damp hair. It is not brutal, exactly, nor is it violent, but it is needy. It’s pent-up with want and fear, Trevor’s lip bleeding where Alucard’s fang presses against it.

Finding some measure of comfort in another in times like these is a blessing, but comfort is not what Trevor wants from Alucard. He grips Alucard’s hair in his fist almost meanly, any hesitation quickly removed once Alucard kisses him back with as much fervor as Trevor did. It is hungry, relentless; Alucard suspects he isn’t the only one who has been starving for a touch like this.

Were he fully human, the depth of Trevor’s shame and need would undoubtedly bring Alucard to tears. As things stand, he simply strokes Trevor’s cheek and whispers “Wiser men have risked more for less, Belmont,” into Trevor’s mouth.

The two of them are on borrowed time, but Alucard can’t resist the temptation of putting his mouth on Trevor’s throat, rewarded by a shudder and harsh gasp. It doesn’t last long; however much Trevor wants this, his self-preservation will not allow a vampire near his neck, despite intent. Alucard cannot fault him for that.

He moves his mouth lower, then. Trevor does not protest that, sighing as the river water flows across their bodies.

-

“I don’t believe in god,” Trevor tells him.

It doesn’t come out of nowhere, the statement punctuating the silence. Alucard has been reading through Trevor’s bestiary, searching for some hidden knowledge that will end his father once and for all, eyes pausing on the sketched image of a cross. The page is visible to Trevor, sitting some distance away from Alucard on the log. Alucard raises an eyebrow at Trevor, because it seems strange of him to be fighting creatures of the night descended from hell itself if he does not believe in religion, in a god responsible for all of this. Trevor’s mouth quirks in a small smile, fingers tracing the cross that is barely visible in any other light, worn from years of usage. “I searched for god, years ago, after...after everything happened. I searched for him in churches and in cathedrals, in graveyards, in fields. He wasn’t there.”

Shrugging, Trevor turns the page, chuckling at the image of a priest blessing a fountain. “I guess that makes me a heretic, in a way. Now, I’m not saying there’s not something holding everything together, but god?”

His mouth purses. “God abandoned me a long time ago. I abandoned him, too. Seemed fair, all things considered.”

Alucard can’t claim himself to be religious, but something in him has always yearned for there to be some meaning to the senseless violence of the world. Trevor doesn’t believe in god and somehow, that is a comfort to Alucard, knowing there is a wholly different reason for Trevor to be here, not guided by the often restrictive hand of the church. “What do you believe in, then?” Alucard prompts.

Trevor’s face becomes thoughtful, chin resting in his hand. Alucard can’t help but look, now that he’s allowed to do so much more, laughter in his eyes as Trevor glares when Alucard brushes a kiss across his brow. A faint smile greets him when he pulls back, Trevor bumping their shoulders together. “I believe in people,” he tells Alucard, “In our greed and our selfishness. I believe in our ability to fuck everything up. That’s one constant we won’t ever manage to breed out of ourselves.”

They have known each other for a very short time, but Alucard has learned that time, like many other things, makes little difference in matters of the heart. He keeps that thought to himself, because to look at Trevor and to kiss him are things Alucard can do, but to sit here and say _there is an animal inside me that hungers to keep you safe_ \- that is far too honest, far too soon. It would unravel the small, warm thing built between them, a house resting on rocky foundation and hoping the wind won’t blow it over. That is what he has built for himself. That is worth something.

He clears his throat, then. Alucard jerks his head down in surprise, finding Trevor’s hand in his, Trevor’s cheeks slightly flushed. “I believe in other things, too,” he goes on, looking anywhere but at Alucard’s face, unable to see him smiling. “Is that good enough of an answer for you?”

Alucard has always liked definitives. Trevor is an uncertainty, an ephemeral thing that will eventually leave Alucard behind, but he has unmade everything Alucard believed himself to be. Trevor has convinced him to put down roots.

“Ask me that again later,” Alucard says, his mouth gentle as it meets Trevor’s lips, his tongue entering Trevor’s mouth like a believer entering church, kissing Trevor like an act of worship. “Be with me, for now. Be here.”

It is no small thing to ask of Trevor. Put down your sorrows, let go of your ghosts. Let me kiss your mouth. All these demands, Trevor acquiesces to, his body solid and warm against Alucard’s, the fire keeping them bathed in light, Trevor’s hands on Alucard’s skin, beneath his shirt.

Don’t take this one from me, too, Alucard thinks, then kisses Trevor once more, wondering if this will be the prayer god finally deigns to answer.

**Author's Note:**

> title from melissa studdard, "after you left" / maybe leave me a comment if you liked this ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


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